Change the default sort order in KDE's file dialog (working with Kate)

Question

Recently, my Kate text editor is showing files and folders "By Date" in the file dialogs, and I would like to get back to alphabetical order. I am running Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity, KDE Platform Version 4.8.5 (4.8.5), Kate Version 3.8.5. I can't figure out how to change it.

Answer 1

Ok, I've figured it out. On Ubuntu 13.04 (at least), edit the file:

~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals

It is a configuration file in the Windows INI style format. Locate the section called

[KFileDialog Settings]

Change the settings:

Sort by=Date
Sort reversed=true

into:

Sort by=Name
Sort reversed=false

Furthermore, changing

View Style=Simple

into

View Style=Detail

will make it easy to change the sort order on the fly.

The changes will not be immediately picked up by Kate. I did not need to restart the computer or even logout from my Ubuntu Unity session, but logout is probably the way to go if the changes do not take effect after a while.